


there is no passion; there is serenity

by SouthSideStory



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Jedi!Rey, Prompt Fill, Senator!Ben, two miserable people meet at a wedding au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:19:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11148261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthSideStory/pseuds/SouthSideStory
Summary: Leia and Han tie the knot after thirty years of avoiding it, much to their son's displeasure. Rey was tasked with guarding the bride, but somehow she ends up drinking wine with Ben Organa instead. (For the prompt: two miserable people meeting at a wedding AU.)





	there is no passion; there is serenity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LarirenShadow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarirenShadow/gifts).



Rey’s assignment for the night is simple enough: guard Senator Organa on her wedding day.

The senator makes a beautiful bride, if an unconventional one. She has eschewed anything ornate for a plain white dress, long-sleeved and high-necked. It isn’t as though she can’t afford something fancier; Leia Organa was a princess, then a rebellion commander, before becoming one of the foremost Senators in the galaxy. She’s famous for her fine clothes and elaborate hairstyles, but today she’s dressed simply, her grey-streaked hair falling loose to the small of her back.

She smiles when she catches Rey looking at her, and there’s the gentlest tug in the Force—Senator Organa reaching out to her, Rey realizes. She remembers with a sudden lurch of embarrassment that this woman is also Master Luke’s sister.

“I wore a dress almost identical to this one the day that I met Han,” she says, smiling. “I thought a bit of nostalgia would be appropriate—and the look on his face will be priceless.”

Rey smiles. She hopes it doesn’t look as strained as it feels. The Senator seems kind, and she doesn’t deserve a dour Jedi dogging her footsteps on a day that should be joyful.

When it’s time for the ceremony to start, the senator pats Rey on the shoulder and says, “It was thoughtful of Luke to send some extra protection to my wedding, and I appreciate your effort, but I can take care of myself. You’re dismissed for the evening.”

“But—”

The senator’s smile sharpens. “But nothing. Enjoy my wedding, and if I catch you shadowing me, I’ll only give Luke grief about it.”

She walks out of her dressing room before Rey can think of anything useful to say.

 

* * *

 

The ceremony is short and informal, but the reception is a party unlike any Rey has ever seen. There must be two hundred people in this ballroom, and by the looks of them, they range from the galaxy’s highest legislators and diplomats to its bottom-feeders. A representative sample of the bride and groom’s respective social circles, Rey imagines.

The senator and her husband are as different as night and day, but there’s no denying their love. They look at one another like they’re alone in this crowded room. It’s charming, beautiful even, but Rey can barely summon any feeling for the sight of them besides bitterness.

“So what did you do to get stuck with this assignment? Draw the short stick?”

Rey glances to her left, then up, because the man speaking to her is uncommonly tall. There’s something familiar about the curve of his lips, the shape of his brown eyes, but Rey can’t quite place it.

“Do I know you?” she asks.

He looks her up and down. “Doubtful. I’ve never set foot in my uncle’s charade of a Jedi school.”

“Uncle,” she says dumbly, a moment before her brain catches up to her mouth. “You must be Ben. Master Luke speaks of you.”

Rarely, and sometimes with frustration, but it would be rude to tell him as much.

“It’s Senator Organa these days,” Ben says dryly. Then he points to his mother. “Not to be confused with the Senator Organa in the white dress.”

Rey bites her lip, but she can feel her smile peeking out anyway. “It would be an easy mistake to make. You favor your father more, but you look like her too.”

“And yet uglier than both,” Ben says. He smirks, as if this is a joke, although Rey thinks it might not be, at least not entirely.

“You must not own a very accurate mirror.”

She didn’t mean to say that, but it’s hard to regret it when Ben’s pretense of a smile softens into something real.

“Aren’t Jedi forbidden to flirt?” he asks.

Rey shrugs. “How would you know? You said you’ve never been to the Academy.”

He could have, if he’d wanted to. Rey would know that even if Master Luke hadn’t told her about his nephew rejecting the Jedi path. She can feel the vibrancy of the Force all around him, potent and overwhelming.

Ben leans down, until the warmth of his breath fans across her temple. “I understand the rules,” he says. “Even if I chose not to follow them.”

 

* * *

 

Ben Organa is a verbose and sloppy drunk. He drinks straight from a wine bottle, with none of the grace or restraint that she might have expected from a senator. The Corellian red has left his mouth ruddy and damp, and Rey is trying very, very hard not to think about that.

She isn’t entirely sure where he took her, only that this room is dim, shuttered, and far away from the busy ballroom three floors below.

“It’s _stupid_ , is what it is. Marriage won’t fix whatever the fuck it is that’s wrong with them. They’ve been together for thirty years, and they’ve spent more of that apart than in the same room! They fight all the time, and I’d swear that my father must be _trying_ make Mom angry, but to be honest, I think he’s just very good at winding her up without even meaning to.”

Ben takes another long swallow of wine, throat working furiously as he chugs it.

“They love each other. I only just met them today, and even I can see that,” Rey says. “And stop being a hog. You drank most of the last bottle by yourself.”

Ben bites his reddened lip, worrying it so roughly that it has to hurt. Then he smiles, hands over the wine, and says, “My sincerest apologies, Master Rey.”

“I’m only a knight,” she says.

“ _Only_ a knight. You say that like it’s unimpressive, but if you’ve already earned that title, you must be something special.” Ben looks her up and down again, same as he did in the ballroom a few hours ago. “How old are you anyway? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Nineteen-and-a-half,” Rey says.

“So you still count your age in half-years?” he asks. “How grown up of you.”

Rey finishes off the wine, sets the empty bottle aside, and says, “So you get drunk with people you don’t know and whine about your famous parents? How grown up of you.”

Ben laughs, but there’s a dark, angry edge to it, like he didn’t find that funny at all.

Good; she hadn’t meant it to be funny.

When he stops laughing, Ben says, “What’s got your panties in a twist, darling? You’ve been scowling since I met you.”

Rey wraps her arms around her middle. “Maybe I scowl all the time.”

Ben slides closer to her, so that his powerful body brushes against her side. “I might believe that if I couldn’t feel how angry you are. The Force is boiling with it all around you.”

He’s warm. Strong, broad, and so blatantly sensual that the heat of his presence is prickling under her clothes, under her skin. It makes her feel foolish, reckless, beyond the burden of her responsibilities.

“I wanted what I saw your parents promise today. Love, commitment, faithfulness,” she says. “And I guess I have those things, in a strange way. You can’t be a Jedi without them. But dedicating yourself to an order you believe in—it’s not the same as being loved.”

Rey doesn’t know why she’s spilling her secrets, her fears and reservations, with a perfect stranger, but it’s oddly easy to admit all of this to Ben. Maybe because he had the same choice she did: to learn the way of the Jedi, or to lead a freer life. Ben had the same choice, and he chose differently.

Then again, it might have nothing to do with that. It could simply be that she’s spent all day wanting more than her lot has to offer, and Rey knows that, if she asked, Ben would give her a taste of what she’s missing. Love isn’t something you can find in one night, but there are other things he could show her. Share with her.

He takes her hand, twines their fingers together, and caresses the point of her wrist with his thumb. It’s obvious, what he’s asking without speaking aloud, and Rey shivers.

“Ben?”

He hums, low in his throat. “Yes?”

Rey breathes in, deeply, steadily, trying to work up the courage to say something, anything. _Will you hold me? Will you touch me? Will you—_

Ben kisses her. His mouth is wet, soft, bitter-rich from too much wine, and it feels good. So wildly, impossibly good, that Rey doesn’t hesitate to kiss back.

 

* * *

 

They’re both clumsy and slow-witted, but Ben knows what he’s doing, and Rey is impatient and unafraid. They strip each other out of most of their clothes, then stumble to the wide, dusty couch in the corner. Rey nibbles at Ben’s throat, running her hands all over him, until he breaks away to kiss his way down to her sex. Then he kisses her there too, that sweet, supple mouth of his working her until she’s trembling and aching, begging for more. He doesn’t stop, just keeps licking, sucking, flicking his tongue across the neediest parts of her. She feels languid all over and slick, wet, such a mess between her legs, but it’s not enough. It won’t do.

“I can’t—I can’t—” she cries, and suddenly it isn’t good at all. Just one more thing she desperately wants but can’t have.

Ben climbs on top of her, starts kissing her jaw, her cheek, her temple. “You _can_ , all right? You can, and I’ll make sure of it.”

Rey hangs onto his vast shoulders, opens her legs wider, giving permission with her body because she can’t find her voice. Then he’s pushing against her, inside of her. Joining them, taking her, rocking her through the ache of it to a full, uncertain pleasure. So much keener and harsher than his pretty mouth had been, and it still has her clinging to him and gasping. She tells him to have her harder, faster, and he does. Ben follows orders like he was made for it, so she gives more. _Kiss me. Say my name. Get off me and lay down; I want to be on top._

Ben listens. He listens so well that Rey could lose herself in giving him commands. It’s intoxicating, how biddable he is, and she rides him until he starts to whimper, hissing, “Stop! I’m—I’m close, and we shouldn’t—”

Rey scrambles off of him, panicked out of her lust. She’s a Jedi, and Jedi have no need of contraceptive measures. If he hadn’t warned her, she could’ve ended up—

Ben sucks on his first two fingers, then slides them between her legs, and she’s unthinking again. Yes, that’s what his mouth was too soft to give her, what his cock and his submission teased her right to the brink of. She comes, a cry caught sharp in her throat as the pleasure heightens and hits her, taking her apart while she watches Ben stroke himself to the edge. He finishes just as she’s quivering through the last of the aftershocks, and he’s so perfect. Lost and giving and all hers, at least for right now.

 

* * *

 

 

They dress in the dark. Covert, hushed, the scents of sweat and sex coloring the air between them while they try to make themselves presentable. It’s a lost cause for Rey; her hair is a rat’s nest from the manhandling Ben gave it, and she can feel the tenderness of love-bites springing to life on her throat in at least two places. It’s some consolation that he looks nearly as disheveled as she feels, but not much.

Downstairs, the reception is long over. Ben follows her outside and takes a seat on the wide stone steps next to her.

“Well,” he says. “Was I so good that you’re going to renounce the Order for a life of pleasure-seeking?”

_Almost_ , Rey thinks, but she has the sense not to say it.

Instead, she rests her head on his shoulder, allows herself to lean against his solid body, and whispers, “I’m glad I met you, Ben Organa.”

It’s the gentlest way she can think of to say _thank you_ and _goodbye_ at once.

When he answers, Ben’s voice is quiet, almost lost in the darkness. “Do you think if we’d met some other way, at another time, that you might want to see me again?”

Rey knows that she’s going to remember this man for the rest of her days. Wherever their lives take them, and whether or not they see one another again, this night will be with her forever. She can’t imagine meeting Ben under any circumstances without being deeply, irrevocably changed by it.

“Of course,” Rey says. “Of course I would.”

 


End file.
